CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A QUESTION OF VERACITY

  Geoffrey Clavering's reply to Lady Katharine's staggering question wasgiven so promptly that one might have been tempted to believe he hadexpected it and prepared himself for the question beforehand.

  "I had no idea of going there at first," he said. "I couldn't remainamong the guests after you had left the Close and Narkom's men hadbundled that De Louvisan out of the house; my head seemed full of fire,and I simply couldn't. I got away as soon as I decently could, and wentupstairs to my own room. I couldn't stop there, either; the stillnessand the loneliness half maddened me and set me to thinking and thinkinguntil I thought my head would burst. So, in sheer desperation, I caughtup a cap, sneaked down the back stairs, and let myself out. Nobody sawme go, and, thank God, nobody saw me return, either. I walked about theCommon for heaven knows how long before I turned round at the sound ofsome one coming toward me through the mist, and the next thing I knew I'bumped' smack into that person, and found it to be my stepmother."

  "Lady Clavering?" said the girl in a tone of the utmost surprise--andCleek could have blessed her for the words, since they voiced an inquiryupon a subject which he much desired to have explained. "You mean to saythat Lady Clavering was out there on the Common, away from her guests?What could have impelled her to take such a step--and at such a time?"

  "She had come in search of me, she said. She felt anxious, distressed,afraid, so she said, that I would do something desperate, and went to myroom to talk with me. When she found it empty she jumped to theconclusion that I had gone out for the purpose of following De Louvisanand meeting him somewhere for the mere satisfaction of thrashing him.She begged and implored me to come back to the Close; to do nothingrash; to think of my father; to remember her; to be careful to donothing that would get your name mixed up in a vulgar brawl. And shewouldn't leave me until I promised her on my word of honour that I wouldmake no effort to find De Louvisan. When I did that, she was satisfiedand went back to the Close."

  In the darkness of the stone staircase Cleek puckered up his brows andthoughtfully pinched his chin.

  Oho! so that was the explanation of her ladyship's presence on theCommon last night, was it? Mere solicitude for the welfare of a belovedstepson, eh? Hum-m-m! Rather disappointing, to say the least of it, tofind that she had no more connection with the case than just that. Afterall, she was merely "a red herring drawn across the trail," eh? Heshouldn't have thought so, but, of course, if young Clavering spoke thetruth, that eliminated _her_ from the affair altogether. Odd that sheshould have bribed the Common keeper not to say a word about having mether! In the circumstances, why should she have done so?

  Ah, yes--just so! She wouldn't like to have the affair talked about; shewouldn't like to have young Geoff put on his guard, so that he mightpurposely avoid meeting her, and she would be most anxious to get himback into the house as quietly and as expeditiously as possible. No,decidedly, you never can be certain. Women are queer fish at the best oftimes, and mothers have odd methods of reasoning when beloved sons areconcerned. But stepmothers? Hum-m-m! Yes, yes! To be sure, there arealways exceptions. Still, he hadn't thought--he decidedly had notthought----

  Young Clavering was speaking again. Cleek let the "thought" trail offand lose itself, and pricked up his ears to listen.

  "I suppose it was her speaking of you that first put the idea into myhead," Geoff went on, "and impelled me to walk over to the place wherewe had been so happy before your father returned from Argentina andspoiled everything for us. That's why I went. That's how I came to meetyou there."

  "You did not meet me there!" she flung back indignantly. "Really this ispast a jest."

  "A jest? You think I'm likely to jest over it--a thing that threatensthe life of the girl I love? In the name of heaven, Kathie, put an endto this nonsense. You know I did meet you there! You know how surprisedI was when I got to the place to see you stealing out of the gates. Why,the very moment you saw me you spoke my name, and that I had no morethan just time to say to you, 'For God's sake, Kathie, how did you comehere?' when you plucked me by the sleeve and said, 'Come in, come in;I'll show you something that will light the way back to the land ofhappiness, dear!' And after all that to face me down like this--topretend that you were not there. It is simply ridiculous."

  "I am glad you can give it so mild a name," said the girl coldly. "To meit seems the cruellest and the wickedest falsehood a man could possiblyutter. Dear God! what has come over you, Geoff? Are you mad, or are yousomething worse, to come here and make this abominable lying chargeagainst me--against _me_? And when you know in your heart that there isnot one word of truth in it!"

  "Oh, for God's sake, don't treat me as if I were a fool, Katharine. Whois there to impersonate you, and for what reason? I know what I know, Iknow what I've seen, what I've heard, what I've been through! Then whatin heaven's name is the use of keeping up this idle pretence with me?"

  "It is not a pretence--it is the truth, the simple and the absolutetruth!" she replied with heat. "If they were the last words I had tosay in this world, I would repeat on the very threshold of the one tocome: _I was not at Gleer Cottage last night._ I came straight fromClavering Close to Wuthering Grange, and I never left my room for oneinstant from that time until I came down to breakfast this morning.Ailsa Lorne was with me when I returned; she will tell you that I amspeaking the truth."

  Yes, decidedly Ailsa Lorne would tell him; that Cleek acknowledged tohimself. Had she not done so already? But again she might also have toldhim that she thought she heard Lady Katharine's bedroom door open in thenight and some one steal out of it. Besides, there was anotherthing--the golden capsule of the scent bracelet--to be reckoned with.Hum-m-m! Was there, then, a possibility that Geoff Clavering wasspeaking the truth, and that it was Lady Katharine herself who waslying? Of course, in that case---- Stop a bit--they were going at itagain, and he could not afford to lose a single word.

  "I don't care a hang what Ailsa Lorne or anybody else will say; I knowwhat I know," young Clavering flung in doggedly. "You can't tell me thatI didn't see a thing when I did see it--at least, you can't and expectto make me believe it. Give me credit for a little common sense."

  "How can I when your own words so utterly refute it, when you convictyourself out of your own mouth, when even the dead man himself is awitness to the utter folly of this charge?"

  "De Louvisan?"

  "Yes. He speaks for me!"

  "What nonsense!"

  "He speaks for me," she repeated, not noticing the interruption, "and ifyou will not believe a living witness, then you must believe a dead one.Uncle Raynor and Harry said this morning that the Count de Louvisan'sbody had been found, not lying on the ground, but lifted up and spikedto the wall; and you who claim to have seen me in that house last nightclaim also to have searched the place and found no one but me present.Will you tell me, then, how I could possibly have lifted the body of aman weighing ten or eleven stone at the least computation, much lesshave lifted it high enough to spike it to a wall?"

  "One for the girl!" commented Cleek silently.

  "You might have had help; there might have been somebody there who leftbefore I arrived," replied Geoff.

  "And another one for the man!" Cleek was obliged to admit. "Which ofthis interesting pair is doing the lying? They can't both be speakingthe truth. At least, they can't unless---- By Jupiter! Hum-m-m! Quiteso! Quite so! 'Write me down an ass, gentlemen,' and an ass with acapital A." Then the curious one-sided smile travelled up his cheek, andlingered there longer than usual.

  Young Clavering's last remark had hurt the girl more than anything hehad yet said; hurt her so deeply that she gave a little shuddering cryand, womanlike, broke into tears.

  "That is the wickedest thing of all!" she said. "The very wickedestthing of all. I can't doubt any longer that you have made up your mindto bolster up this abominable thing by every possible insult to me!"

  "Insult? What funny things are sometimes said by acc
ident!" he flungback stridently. "I am likely to 'insult' you when I'm ready to stand byyou through thick and thin, am I not? And to lie till I'm black in theface, so that I keep others from knowing what I know!"

  "You don't know it--you can't know it! It never happened! I was not inthat house last night, and you did not see me there!"

  "Oh, well then, let us say I didn't," impatiently. "What does it matterone way or the other? Say I didn't, then! Say _I_ murdered him; but, forGod's sake, don't say I insult you when I have come here merely to showyou how much I love you--how ready I am to fight the whole world foryou. Come back into my arms, and let me tell you what I want to tell,dear. Come back, and don't fear anything or anybody on earth. Theyshan't touch you! They shan't lift a finger to harm you, say one singleword against you; and God help the first that tries it, that's all! Aman doesn't cease to love a woman just because she does a desperatething for his sake. No, not he! If he's worthy of the name of man, heloves her all the better for it. That's how I love you! Better to-daythan I ever loved you in all the days that were; better than I shallever love anything in all the days that are to be. I don't care if youare red with the blood of a hundred men, you're the girl I love, thegirl I mean to marry, the girl I'm going to stand up and fight for aslong as there's breath left in my body!"

  "Marry--marry?" Her voice struck through his even before he had finishedspeaking, and there was a sting in it that bit. "Do you think for oneinstant that I would marry you when you make such a charge as thatagainst me? Do you think I would? Do you? I'd no more marry you than Iwould cut off my right hand, Geoff Clavering, after you have slanderedme and lied about me like this."

  "Kathie, dearest----"

  "No--please! If you touch me I think I shall faint! Stay where you are!Let me alone! Ah, please do--please! I have suffered and suffered andsuffered, but not like this; oh, never like this before! That you shouldsay these things--you! That you should even dream of saying them! Youought to be ashamed of yourself--ashamed!"

  "Kathie, darling----"

  "No, no--don't, please don't; it would be wicked to touch me when I amsuffering so much. I want to get back to my room-- I want to lie down;my head will split if I don't. Please do not follow me; please staywhere you are. I won't say a word to anybody; I promise you I won't.I'll try to bear it, I'll try to forget it. Nine years! Dear God, nineyears; and--those marks totalled nine!"

  He jumped as though some one had stabbed him; a red wave rushed up andcrimsoned all his face, then flashed out of existence again and left itwaxen white.

  "Good God! you won't attempt to suggest----" he began, then lost thepower of speaking altogether, and stood looking at her with blank eyesand with colourless lips hard shut as she crept on through the shadowydusk to where the doorway of the ruin showed a pointed arch against thedimming saffron of a twilight sky. A moment her drooping figure stoodthere against that shield of yellow light, pausing irresolute with onefoot on the edge of the drawbridge, one hand pressed to her head; thenshe turned and looked back at the place where he stood. But in the dimdusk of the ruin she could scarcely see him.

  "I will never speak, I will never tell--even to the day I die I won't!"she said in a whisper; then waited an instant as if expecting a reply,and getting none, added yet more sadly, "Good-bye," and went across thedrawbridge to the darkening gardens, and was gone.

  For a minute the man made neither movement nor sound till of a suddenthere came something so totally unexpected as to cause him to literallyjump. Some one had given a none too perfect representation of a muffledsneeze, telling him that he was not alone.

  "Who's there? Who are you?" he cried in an excited whisper

  But nobody answered.

  "Do you hear what I say? Come out and show yourself, whoever you are!"he called in a slightly louder tone; and then, getting no answer thistime either, he fumbled in his pocket, fished out his match box, andstruck a vesta.

  The glimmering light showed him what the dusk had so successfullyconcealed heretofore--namely, the gap in the floor and the underside ofthe slab which usually covered the entrance to the underground cells,but which was now laid back on its hinges with its lower side upmost andthe way to the stone staircase in full view. And in the very instant hemade this discovery there rolled up from that gap the sound of somebodyrunning away.

  In a sort of panic young Clavering made a dash for the trap, and wasthrough it and down the stone steps in almost no time, the wax vestaflickering and flaring in the fingers of his upraised hand and sendinggushes of light weaving in and out among the arches of the passage andthe gaping doorways of the mimic cells.

  Nobody in sight. He called, but nobody answered; he commanded, butnobody came forth. And with the intention of routing the author of thesneeze and the footsteps, he had just started forward to investigate thecells themselves, when the match burnt his fingers and was flung downsharply. Darkness shut in as though a curtain had fallen. He fumbledwith the box to get another match, and had almost secured one when heheard a movement behind him and flashed round on his heel.

  "Anybody there?" he rapped out sharply.

  "Yes; Cleek, of Scotland Yard!" answered a bland voice immediately infront of him; then there was a sharp spring, a swift rustle, a metallicclick-click! His match box was on the floor, and a band of steel waslocked about each wrist.

  "Good Lord! you've put handcuffs on me, you infernal scoundrel!"Clavering cried out indignantly. "What is the meaning of this outrage?What are----Here! chuck that! Confound your cheek! what are you doing tomy ankles?"

  "Same thing as I've done to your wrists," replied Cleek serenely."Sorry, but I shall have to carry you, my young friend; and I can't riskgetting my shins kicked to a pulp."

  "Carry me? Carry me where? Good God, man! not to jail?"

  "Oh, no. That may come later, and certainly will come if you are guilty.For the present, however, I am simply going to carry you to a ratheruncomfortable cell at the end of the passage, and put you where youwon't be able to run away. I am afraid, however, that I shall have togag you as well as handcuff you, and make you more uncomfortable still.But I'll manage somehow to get some bedding of some sort, and to seethat you don't miss your dinner. You are going to spend the night here,my friend. Now, then, up you come and--there you are, on my shoulder.Steady, if you please, while I get out my pocket torch to light the way.I suppose you realize that I have heard all that passed between you andLady Katharine Fordham this evening?"

  "And you know that I lied, don't you?" put in Geoff eagerly. "You knowthat she _wasn't_ there last night, after all?"

  "To the contrary, my friend, I know that she was."

  "It's a lie--it's a dashed lie! She never was near the place. That waspure bluff. It was I who killed the man."

  "Don't tell any more lies than you are obliged to, my lad. I don'tbelieve she killed him, and I'm not so very sure that you killedhim--and there you are."

  "Then what are you arresting me for?"

  "I'm not arresting you; I'm simply sifting evidence. Yourstepmother--according to _your_ story--must be very, very fond of you,and very, very solicitous for your welfare. And if she risked catchingcold and having people talk and all that sort of thing to rush out afteryou when you had only been gone for a short time, let's see how she'llact when you disappear mysteriously and don't come home all night!"